A Campaign of Giants--The Battle for Petersburg - (Civil War America) by A Wilson Greene (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Grinding, bloody, and ultimately decisive, the Petersburg Campaign was the Civil War's longest and among its most complex. A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg offers a gripping, comprehensive history of the decisive campaign in the eastern theater. In this second of three volumes, A. Wilson Greene narrates the critical months from August through October 1864, during which Ulysses S. Grant's army group launched three major offensives against Robert E. Lee's defenses around Petersburg and the Confederate capital in Richmond. The Confederates counterpunched after each Union advance and conducted a spectacular cavalry raid that netted almost 2,500 cattle from Federal grazing grounds. But as winter approached, Grant had captured one of Lee's primary supply routes and extended the lines around Petersburg and Richmond to some thirty-five miles.

Supported by thirty-four detailed maps, Greene's narrative chronicles these bloody engagements using many previously unpublished primary accounts from common soldiers and ranking officers alike. The struggle for Petersburg is often characterized as a siege, but Greene's narrative demonstrates that it was dynamic, involving maneuver and combat equal in intensity to that of any major Civil War operation.

Review Quotes

"This well-written, straight-forward, account of the Petersburg Campaign . . . is essential reading for those with a serious interest in the Civil War."--Civil War Monitor

"Masterful. . . . Greene's familiarity with Petersburg, enhanced by working on those landscapes for decades, is unmatched. His meticulous research, cogent analysis, and elegant prose make for a compelling read that does much to enhance our knowledge of this pivotal campaign. I anxiously await the third and final volume of this magisterial study."--Civil War Monitor's Best Civil War Books of 2025

"[Volume II] picks up where his magnificent A Campaign of Giants: The Battle for Petersburg, Volume I: From the Crossing of the James to the Crater leaves off . . . . thoroughly research and readable. It will undoubtedly be the last word on the subject for many years. It is very highly recommended."--Civil War News

"A towering achievement of research . . . . Greene's writing is sharp, pithy, and occasionally humorous . . . . [He] restores this period of intense combat and strategic maneuvering to a central position in our understanding of why the United States forces triumphed in the Civil War."--Emerging Civil War

"Exhaustively researched and meticulously written history."--New York Journal of Books

"Greene's well-written history of the Battle of Petersburg should be read by anyone interested in the American Civil War."--Library Journal, STARRED review

"If V3 meets the same standards set by V1-2, and there is no reason to suppose otherwise, then the finished trilogy will unquestionably become a lasting standard on the same order as other top-flight book series such as David Powell's Chickamauga, Timothy Smith's Vicksburg, and Gordon Rhea's aforementioned Overland Campaign work."--Civil War Books and Authors

"Many historians have written on the complex operations comprising the ten-month struggle for Petersburg, Virginia. No previous work can compare, however, to this masterful account by A. Wilson Greene. Drawing on impeccable research, Greene offers astute observations and a wealth of detail in a compelling narrative. This second volume of a planned trilogy makes clear that Greene is writing the definitive history of the Petersburg campaign." -- Jeffry D. Wert, author of The Heart of Hell: The Soldiers' Struggle for Spotsylvania's Bloody Angle

"With the second volume of A Campaign of Giants, one of the field's finest military historians returns to the subject he knows best. Beautifully written and impeccably researched, this book is a must-read for serious students of the war."--Susannah J. Ural, Mississippi State University

About the Author

Prizewinning author A. Wilson Greene spent a forty-four-year career in public history, twenty-four of them working on the Petersburg battlefields. His first volume in this trilogy, From the Crossing of the James to the Crater, was published in 2018. He lives in Walden, Tennessee.